Low Light Shooting of a Moving Raptor

06Honda

Senior Member
I have been watching some Short-eared Owls hunting in an open field not far from my home late in the day. They usually start around 4:45pm so th light is not the best. Looking for some focus tips on shooting this fast flying owls with my D7200 and the updated 80-400VR lense handheld. I will have the VR on and make sure I am in Active on the lense itself so tips on actuall ISO etc would be appreciated. Many times I just shoot in P mode when its sunny out but in this situation that is not likely to work out too well.
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Have you thought about auto ISO and lens wide open, there is going to be a minimum shutter speed you need so if you want the picture something may have to give.
 

Iansky

Senior Member
You have a fantastic selection of wildlife / nature images on your Flickr pages - thank you for sharing these and inspiring me to try my hand more at wildlife work.
 

06Honda

Senior Member
Auto ISO is no problem, my understanding is the D7200 does fairly good with ISO as it goes up. Wide open, so bascially just shoot in A: Aperture Priority Mode and adjust to F4.5? Reason for asking is I don't use much other than P most of the time :redface-new:[h=2][/h]
 

06Honda

Senior Member
Thankd Iansky, appreciate the kind words. Winter here in southern Ontario is a perfect time and the best actually to photograph wild owls as several species spend the winters in our area after coming down for their northern breeding grounds. Snowy owl's are usually the most plentiful and this year is no exception.
 

lokatz

Senior Member
Auto ISO is no problem, my understanding is the D7200 does fairly good with ISO as it goes up. Wide open, so bascially just shoot in A: Aperture Priority Mode and adjust to F4.5? Reason for asking is I don't use much other than P most of the time :redface-new:

'A' mode with the lens set to f/4.5 is a good start and the best solution if you shoot with a tripod. Otherwise, if you have sufficient experience with your lens to know which shutter speed you can comfortably hand-hold, I would switch to 'M' mode and set that shutter speed, as well. Both work best with ISO Auto.
 

06Honda

Senior Member
I am game for shooting in manual also, good way to learn thats for sure. On flickr where I host my images 99% of them are taken in P mode.
 

lokatz

Senior Member
Nothing wrong with P mode. In the vast majority of cases, your camera will do a great job.

There are situations where having more control yourself can be helpful, though, and what you described strikes me as one of them: by pre-setting the 'ideal' aperture and shutter speed, you not only eliminate the odds of your camera making a poorer decision, for whatever reason, but you also allow it to start the precise part of the focusing process just a little bit quicker, so the odds of reaching sharp focus on that moving subject go up.
 
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mikew_RIP

Senior Member
In some ways manual with auto ISO is a auto mode, i dont it use on my mirrorless but only because ime happy shooting my lens wide open so i shoot shutter priority.

This means i have shutter control on the back dial and exposure compensation on the front dial with no need to press any buttons to use it, as ime panning i can adjust the compensation on the fly (pun intended).
 
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